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X.—The Great Seal of England: Deputed or Departmental Seals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

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So far as is known the earliest Norman Kings had only one seal with which to authenticate any written orders or communications which issued in their name: under his Great Seal the King would agree to a treaty or order payment for his wine, summon a sheriff to account or bestow an earldom, arrange his own marriage or the legal affairs of one of his subjects; and in the original documents under this seal which have survived to us from the twelfth century, even in those which we find in the enrolments of the early thirteenth, may be traced every important element which we find in executive administration by Government departments to-day; not to mention those which might be discerned in the private correspondence of the sovereign. But very early it was found that it was impossible for one seal to deal with the resulting mass of business or to cope with the situation which arose when the King (with the Chancellor in his company) was absent from the usual seat of Government: the Dialogus de Scaccario tells us that already in the twelfth century there was a second seal which was kept by the Chancellor in the Treasury per vicarium As executive business developed and increased in succeeding centuries other seal developments followed: notably the addition to the resources of royal administration of the Privy and Secret Seals and of the Signets, which are the direct ancestors of the seals that still symbolize the authority of a secretary of state. But meanwhile the principle of dividing the Great Seal itself was also extended and much used: and it is with these deputies or departmental versions of the Great Seal that the present article is to deal.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1936

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References

page 293 note 1 Oxford edition, p. 107.

page 293 note 2 At the time this paper was read I included in it some notes on the Great Seal proper which, in a slightly expanded form, have now been printed as a separate article in the Antiquaries Journal for January 1936. I attempted in that article some consideration of occasions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when the old idea of a duplicate Great Seal again came into action owing to the King's absence from the realm and of some in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when a disused seal was revived for diplomatic use abroad.

page 294 note 1 It is generally said that the Norman Kings combined in their Great Seals the Norman equestrian portrait with the Saxon throned one.

page 294 note 2 See Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte's Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England (1926), P. 327.

page 294 note 3 Antiq. Journ., xi (1931), 229.

page 295 note 1 This difference is, in fact, the easy way of distinguishing readily ‘original’ from ‘judicial’ writs, before that distinction becomes a matter of handwriting.

page 295 note 2 My list is not quite complete. Henry IV is represented only by a doubtful attribution, though a number of the seals of other sovereigns were actually used also in this reign: Edward V and Lady Jane Grey are wanting for obvious reasons: and I have found no examples for William III without his consort. Richard Cromwell during his brief Protectorship probably used his father's seals: see British Museum, Catalogue, number 17341, and C. H. Hunter Blair in. Archaeologia, lxxvii, p. 176: also pl. XCVII in the present article.

page 296 note 1 Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, i (Manchester, 1920), 141.Google Scholar

page 296 note 2 p. 107.

page 296 note 3 Antiq. Journ., xvi, 22.

page 296 note 4 See my introduction to Selden Society No. 48 (Select Cases in the Exchequer of Pleas, 1931), p. xxxix, quoting the work of Miss M. H. Mills.

page 296 note 5 Ibid., p. liii.

page 296 note 6 Cp. the Mirror of Justices written in the reign of Edward I, quoted ibid., p. xiv.

page 296 note 7 Tout, op. cit., i, 288, citing Patent Roll for 1253.

page 296 note 8 Ibid., p. 146, f.n. 3, citing Madox, History of the Exchequer.

page 296 note 9 Sir. Bonner, G. A., The Office of the King's Remembrancer in England (1930), p. 24.Google Scholar

page 297 note 1 British Museum, Catalogue, Nos. 822 to 867. Reigns not noted in the Museum Catalogue and subsequent accruals but for which specimens exist at the Record Office are those of Mary, George III, Edward VII, and George V.

page 297 note 2 On this, and on other Exchequer Seals, see an article by C. S. Perceval in Proc. Soc. Ant., viii, 299.

page 297 note 3 Antiq. Journ., xvi, 11.

page 297 note 4 The Record Office has one among its Loose Seals (A. 70) and one on Ancient Deeds, A. 15197. An example in the British Museum is on Add. Ch. 19302. The provenance of the cast in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries is given by Perceval (loc. cit.) as ‘Cast by Ready, Way Collection, whence obtained quaere.’ The best specimen yet recorded is one in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Durham: see C. H. Hunter Blair, Durham Seals (1911–21), Number 3029.

page 297 note 5 Cp. A. B. and Allan Wyon, Great Seals of England (1887), pl. VII, no. 44. See also the ‘Gascon ‘Seal of Henry III illustrated below, pl. LXXXIX.

page 298 note 1 This is the seal which formed the basis of Perceval's article already cited.

page 298 note 2 It has also the title of Henry VIII as king of Ireland: in the first he is still dominus. The change follows the statute of 35 Henry VIII, c. 3: see Record Commission, Rotuli Chartarum, i, p. xxii.

page 298 note 3 Example in Public Record Office on Ancient Deeds, D.S. 139, dated 5th July 1555.

page 299 note 1 English Historical Review, xlii (1927), 397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 299 note 2 Ibid.

page 299 note 3 Ibid., p. 401.

page 299 note 4 Original writs were those which started a case and to the end they always issued, except in the case of the Exchequer of Pleas, out of the Chancery; whereas the judicial ones, covering all the later stages of an action, were issued by the Court itself. Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte (Notes, p. 305) has shown that actually a practice arose quite early by which these Chancery writs received no more than at most a small modicum of wax. I differ from him in thinking not only that they definitely did have this modicum (traces of it may be seen on some of the examples he cites) but also that this small ‘blob’ of wax was perhaps actually pressed on some part of the Great Seal matrix. There is a curious modern analogy for this in the practice of the Irish Chancery so late as the present century in relation to writs for the election of members of parliament now in the Record Office.

page 299 note 5 The ‘original’ writs of the Chancery are Teste me ipso.

page 300 note 1 It does not necessarily follow from the terms of the complaint of 1338 cited above: but the suggestion is a particularly interesting one in view of the fact that about this very time there was a complaint that justices in Wales used this practice and so deprived the custodians of the Royal Seal of their fees. See below under Wales. There is also a suggestion, in evidence from the year 1351 cited by Dr. Wilkinson (op. cit., p. 398), that something of the same kind may have occurred in Ireland.

page 300 note 2 I think it can be proved that this was not so: though the writs which survive, having all gone out and been ‘returned’, have normally lost all traces of the seal long before they reached us.

page 300 note 3 By the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 36, 37 Victoria, c. 66.

page 300 note 4 In the possession of Peterhouse, Cambridge: the Society of Antiquaries has a cast.

page 301 note 1 Catalogue, numbers 879–88 and subsequent accruals.

page 301 note 2 Above, p. 298. The example in the British Museum is stated to bear the date 1543 on the reverse and includes the title of’ King of Ireland’.

page 301 note 3 This is wrongly described in the Museum Catalogue in the case of the seal of Henry VIII.

page 301 note 4 The British Museum (Catalogue, numbers 889–1004, supplemented by numerous later accruals) has examples of all save Richard III, which I have noted from an original in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries.

page 302 note 1 An example in the shape of an original matrix was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in 1869: see Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, iv, 265.

page 303 note 1 If the original matrix was used throughout it must have had its legend altered from Edward to Richard, from that again to Henry, from that back to Edward, from that again to Richard and from that once more to Henry; while the space round the shield had at least two alterations.

page 303 note 2 By Letters Patent of 38 Henry VIII: see Giuseppi, M. S., Guide to the … Public Record Office, i (1923). p. 139.Google Scholar

page 303 note 3 Created by statute, 27 Henry VIII, c. 27.

page 303 note 4 From 3 Henry VIII, c. 23 to 33 Henry VIII, c. 39. See in regard to these M. S. Giuseppi, op. cit., p. 138.

page 303 note 5 Giuseppi, op. cit., p. 140.

page 303 note 6 Report of the Select Committee on Public Records (1800) to the House of Commons, p. 210.

page 304 note 1 A privatum sigillum of this body (so described in its legend) is already known (see British Museum Catalogue, no. 1035): and the existence of a privatum seems almost to predicate a Magnum Sigillum.

page 304 note 2 By the late W. P. Baildon, some twenty years ago; when it was announced as an ordinary Great Seal.

page 304 note 3 In both he is Ecclesie Anglicane Supremum Caput but in the second the church of Ireland is added and he is Regis (not Domini) Hibernie: this is following the Act of 35 Henry VIII.

page 305 note 1 Augmentation Office, Miscellaneous Books, 229. This series shows unfortunately a number of gaps: for the first thirty-three years of Elizabeth (for example) we have nothing.

Unfortunately also in the later registrations witnessing and sealing clauses seem generally to be covered by an etc., so that we get no evidence from this source: but I have noted a number of citations of earlier grants sub sigillo scaccarii nostri.

page 305 note 2 Catalogue, numbers 1020–1034.

page 305 note 3 For a single-sided seal of Edward VI ad causas ecclesiasticas see Durham Seals, ii, pp. 416, 429.

page 305 note 4 By statute 32 Henry VIII, c. 46: see Giuseppi, Guide, i, p. 274.

page 306 note 1 Catalogue, numbers 1007–19: the Museum has acquired since an example of the reign of James I and this will be found also on Court of Wards, 2/12A/9 in the Record Office.

page 307 note 1 The British Museum Catalogue is misleading on this point.

page 307 note 2 I am indebted to my colleague Mr. C. S. Drew for calling my attention to it.

page 307 note 3 Examples dating from the reign of Edward III to that of Henry VI are in the Record Office Index. For the description see (e.g.) a document in Exchequer, K.R. Accounts, Various, 175, part 1.

page 308 note 1 See T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, i, 293; and Francisque-Michel, and Bémont, Charles, Rôles Gascons (Paris, 1885), nos. 2134, 2602.Google Scholar

page 308 note 2 Rôles Gascons, Supplément (Paris, 1896), p. xix.Google ScholarPubMed

page 308 note 3 British Museum, Harleian Charter, 43. C. 39.

page 308 note 4 In Exchequer, K.R. Accounts, Various, 171/4 will be found examples of a small one-sided Sigillum Curie Vasconie bearing the Royal Arms.

page 308 note 5 See, e.g., British Museum, Catalogue, nos. 19011 to 19016.

page 309 note 1 L. F. C. viii, 1.

page 309 note 2 Add. Ch. 22623.

page 309 note 3 Ancient Deeds, A. 13574.

page 309 note 4 pp. 310, 311.

page 309 note 5 In the later ones we have only the royal name and title.

page 309 note 6 The earlier document has been rendered almost illegible by ill usage and an injudicious hand in modern times has endeavoured to re-write some portions of it. It seems reasonable, however, to infer from the later ones a witnessing by Treasurer and Controller and the eye of faith might almost discern them in the MS.

page 309 note 7 I have also failed to find mention of any examples in the official French Catalogues of Seals.

page 309 note 8 There is no reason that more examples should not yet come to light.

page 310 note 1 See Wyon, pp. 39–63, for the description of all these seals.

page 310 note 2 See for example pls. LXXXV, LXXXIX, and XCI in the present article.

page 310 note 3 According to Wyon (p. 57) it was used only for the first ten months.

page 310 note 4 Wyon, p. 66.

page 311 note 1 See Douet d'Arcq, Collection de Sceaux (vol. iii, Paris, 1868), no. 10043.

page 311 note 2 Antiq. Journ. xvi, 27: they are figured in Wyon pls. XIII A and XIII B.

page 311 note 3 Annales de la Société Historique et Archéologique de Tournai, new series, v, 302.

page 311 note 4 It is mentioned in a footnote to the new edition of Letters and Papers Henry VIII, i (1920), p. 1184.

page 311 note 5 Statute 5 Henry VIII, c. 1.

page 312 note 1 Under certain circumstances the authorities at Tournai had to be certified under the Great Seal of England.

page 312 note 2 The tabellions and scelleur were doubtless to replace a similar French institution: they are quite un-English, in function as well as name. I have not at present discovered any example of a similar seal of a French king: but at the time of the surrender of the town it was particularly announced (Hocquet, p. 314) that Henry would govern it comme Roy de France.

page 313 note 1 Hocquet, op. cit. p. 383, quoting a contemporary relation: cp. ibid. p. 314.

page 314 note 1 Nos. 296–8 in the Catalogue. Nos. 293, 294, and 299 are casts: 295 is a seal of Burgundy.

page 314 note 2 Cottonian Charter, xii, 72, and Add. Charters, 131 and 11847.

page 314 note 3 See Maitland's, F. W. article in the second volume of his Collected Papers (Cambridge, 1911): it is printed also in Anglo-American Studies in Legal History.Google Scholar

page 314 note 4 Calendar of Documents, Ireland, I (1875), no. 1988: see also (no. 2836) the further arrangements made in 1246.

page 314 note 5 English Historical Review, already cited, p. 398.

page 314 note 6 Calendar of Close Rolls, 1354–1360, p. 577.

page 315 note 1 Antiq. Journ., xvi, II: the document is Exchequer, K.R. Accounts, Various, 248/17.

page 315 note 2 See, below, the description of these seals.

page 315 note 3 See the Calendar of Irish Patent and Close Rolls, p. 130.

page 315 note 4 Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin, I (Dublin, 1889).Google Scholar

page 315 note 5 I have to thank, however, Mr. Herbert Wood for some valuable notes, several of which are here utilized.

page 316 note 1 I must record also my obligation to Mr. St. John Brooks for his good offices in this matter.

page 316 note 2 At the time this paper was read a fine example of Elizabeth's Great Seal for Ireland was exhibited by the kindness of Mrs. Walker Heneage.

page 316 note 3 See Royal Irish Academy, Proceedings xxxvc (1918–1920), pp. 126, 128: the seals are on Letters Patent formerly belonging to the Abbey of Duiske.

page 316 note 4 It is on a copy of the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum in the possession of the Henry E. Huntington Library in California. I am indebted to Mr. H. G. Richardson for the sight of a photograph.

page 317 note 1 Document dated 13th August. The seal is extant on a document of this date attributed by Professor Curtis to Lambert Simnel.

page 317 note 2 20th May. From this point onwards I have given in footnotes the dates of the Ormond documents to which these seals are appended (as supplied to me by Professor Curtis) because they cannot at present be identified by reference to any printed work.

page 317 note 3 24th March.

page 317 note 4 18th March.

page 317 note 5 23rd October.

page 317 note 6 23rd October.

page 317 note 7 23rd January.

page 317 note 8 11th August.

page 317 note 9 8th February.

page 317 note 10 27th December.

page 317 note 11 26th August.

page 317 note 12 6th September 1569 and 8th December 1570.

page 317 note 13 24th September.

page 317 note 14 26th April.

page 317 note 15 25th March.

page 317 note 16 16 June.

page 317 note 17 Catalogue, numbers 17,338 to 17,346 and subsequent accruals. The Society of Antiquaries and the Public Record Office have casts and originals for the reigns of James I (also represented in the Ormond MSS.) and Charles II.

page 317 note 18 Forming part of the Ormond MSS.

page 317 note 19 See Constance M. Butler and Archbishop Bernard, Charters of the … Abbey of Duiske … in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, xxxv. c, pp. 126–128.

page 317 note 20 They are remarkable in addition for the fact that the seals are in each case pendent not on tags or laces but on two tongues, cut side by side—a most unusual arrangement.

page 317 note 21 Catalogue, number 17,349.

page 317 note 22 Dublin Corporation, number 62.

page 317 note 23 On a document dated 11th October, 34 Henry VIII.

page 317 note 24 British Museum, Catalogue, numbers 17,351 to 17,353.

page 318 note 1 The cast (shield with English legend) numbered 17,350 certainly belongs to the Exchequer.

page 318 note 2 A cast of one side only (CXLVIII, 9, at the British Museum) is ascribed to George III.

page 318 note 3 Exchequer, K.R. Accounts, Various, 248/17.

page 318 note 4 A cast of one side only for William IV (CXLVIII, 41) is ascribed to this Court.

page 318 note 5 One on a document of November 1527 is nearly perfect, though not a good impression.

page 318 note 6 They are dated 3rd November, 18 Elizabeth; 25th October, 29 Elizabeth; 2nd June, 37 Elizabeth; (2nd ?) June, 43 Elizabeth; and 22nd October, 43 Elizabeth.

page 318 note 7 See Herbert Wood, Guide to the … Public Record Office of Ireland (1919), p. 63.

page 318 note 8 The hall-mark date is 1838.

page 318 note 9 It is said to have belonged to Lord Chief Justice May.

page 318 note 1 0 Catalogue, number 17,356, where it is ascribed to the reign of James II. This is obviously a printer's error, for the Court was abolished in 1662: see Wood, op. cit., p. 265.

page 319 note 1 Calendar of Close Rolls (1327–1330), 228 (m. IId).

page 319 note 2 Save for a brief period when apparently Robert de Vere's personal seal was in use. Calendar of Close Rolls (1385–1389), 388.

page 319 note 3 Calendar of Close Rolls (1377–1381), 21.

page 319 note 4 This is the seal of Henry VIII shown in Plate XCI.

page 319 note 5 By the statute of 35 Henry VIII.

page 319 note 6 The earliest example of the second which I have seen is on a document dated 1594, and apparently it was introduced between 1591 and that date.

page 320 note 1 This remark does not apply to the seal of Cromwell which has on the shield side the legend Magnum Sigillum Hiberniae 1655: see British Museum Catalogue, number 17,340.

Cp. Antiq. Journ., xvi, pp. 16,17.

page 321 note 1 See the example shown in Plate XCIII: there may of course have been a change in the next year, following the change in the King's title. An example of the use of the same matrices by Richard III is in the possession of Dublin Corporation (no. 62).

page 321 note 2 It is noteworthy that the legend on the reverse is in ‘Lombardic’ lettering, whereas that on the obverse is in ‘black letter’. In the present state of our ignorance in regard to this seal I do not feel justified in suggesting positive inferences, but a final re-examination of the obverse (the later of the two matrices) showed that the legend contains the word heres; an element, dating back to Henry V, to which I have adverted below in connexion with the Common Pleas seal of Richard III.

page 321 note 3 It occurs again in the witnessing clause of the document which carries our later (Elizabethan) example of the seal of this Court.

page 322 note 1 On two documents in the Ormond MSS. both dated 1527.

page 322 note 2 See some further comment on this in my article in the Antiquaries Journal, xvi, p. 25. It appears that there was at any rate an order for the alteration of the English Exchequer Seal, though we have no known surviving impression to tell us if the order was executed.

page 323 note 1 British Museum Catalogue, number 17,358.

page 323 note 2 This seal, whose form takes it definitely outside our scope, is known in impressions at the British Museum (Catalogue, numbers 750–754) covering the reigns of Edward I, Edward III, and Henry IV or V.

page 324 note 1 Notes on the Great Seal, pp. 307, 311.

page 324 note 2 Catalogue, numbers 17,222–17,229 and later accruals.

page 324 note 3 Laing, Henry, Catalogue of Impressions from Ancient Scottish Seals (Edinburgh, 1850) pp. 1720.Google Scholar

page 324 note 4 Birch, W. de Gray, History of Scottish Seals, vol. I (Stirling and London, 1905), pp. 7683.Google Scholar

page 324 note 5 Wyon, Allan in his article in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association (xlv, 1889) mentions only seals for Scotland of James I (which he calls the second seal of that King) and Charles I.Google Scholar

page 325 note 1 It appears probably in the seal of James I, possibly in that of Cromwell, certainly in those of George II and the two following kings.

page 325 note 2 I am heavily indebted to my colleague, Mr. D. L. Evans, for help in the compilation of this section and for a number of references from his own notes.

page 326 note 1 See, e.g., the Fealty Roll of the Black Prince, Exchequer, K.R. Miscellanea, 4/34.

page 326 note 2 Rotuli Parliamentorum, i, 273.

page 326 note 3 Calendar of Close Rolls, p. 327.

page 326 note 4 27 Henry VIII, c. 26: Ivor Bowen, The Statutes of Wales (1908), p. 81.

page 326 note 5 34, 35 Henry VIII, c.26: ibid., p. 104.

page 326 note 6 Ivor Bowen, op. cit., p. 107.

page 326 note 7 See below p. 332.

page 326 note 8 They were abolished by Act of 11 George IV and 1 William IV, c. 70.

page 327 note 1 British Museum Catalogue, numbers 5549, 5550.

page 327 note 2 Ibid., numbers 5551–8.

page 327 note 3 ‘For his lordship of Carmarthen’(British Museum Catalogue), a puzzle which cannot at present be solved because these numbers (5573, 5574) are casts only.

page 327 note 4 Catalogue, number 5563.

page 327 note 5 Catalogue, numbers 5559–62.

page 327 note 6 Ancient Deeds, DS. 106.

page 327 note 7 British Museum, XCVI, 80, 81; provenance unknown.

page 327 note 8 Numbers 5570, 5571 (Brecknock group); 5575–7 (Carmarthen group); 5578–80 (Caernarvon group); and 5581–93 (Denbigh group).

page 328 note 1 Journal of the British Archaeological Association, xlix, I.

page 328 note 2 A curious fragment of what looks like a Chancery seal of Edward VI for the Caernarvon group is attached to a document (also rather a curiosity) of the reign of Elizabeth—Ancient Deeds, DD. 236: its one surviving supporter is a dragon, which is wrong, according to Wyon, for a Caernarvon seal.

page 328 note 3 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 1st series, i, pp. 17,18; note by Sir Henry Ellis.

page 328 note 4 Ibid., 2nd series, v, 180; note by G. Grant Francis: see also Archaeologia, xxxi, 495.

page 328 note 5 Archaeologia, xxii, 417.

page 328 note 6 See numbers 5575, 5576, in the British Museum Catalogue, the legend of which gives us Sigillum Judiciale.

page 329 note 1 Catalogue, numbers 5588 and 5589.

page 329 note 2 Catalogue, numbers 5571, 5572, 5590, and 5591: and five casts of the reign of George III not catalogued.

page 329 note 3 Catalogue, number 5565: unfortunately imperfect and not attached to a document, so that its significance is doubtful.

page 329 note 4 See an article by Wakeman, Thomas in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association., xiv (1858), 56.Google Scholar

page 329 note 5 Ibid.

page 329 note 6 See Archaeologia Cambrensis, 4th series, iv, 78.

page 329 note 7 British Museum Catalogue, numbers 5283–5.

page 329 note 8 Wakeman, op. cit.: cp. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, iv, 264.

page 330 note 1 Only portions of letters legible.

page 331 note 1 This is actually the description in the charter by which Edward III made his grant to the duke of Lancaster.

page 331 note 2 The earldom of Pembroke is very often actually called a Palatinate, but unfortunately no body of its records has survived for our enlightenment.

page 331 note 3 One of the most interesting sigillographic developments is seen in the beautiful Palatinate seal of John de Warenne, an impression of which was discovered by Sir William St. John Hope at the Record Office and described by him in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, xxvii, 4. It is of a quite exceptional size and shows the earl enthroned as well as on horseback. In this case, however, the Palatinate was a Scottish one.

page 331 note 4 See C. H. Hunter Blair in Archaeologia, lxxii, 20.

page 332 note 1 Catalogue, numbers 4802, 4803.

page 332 note 2 Ibid., 4804 and Add. Ch. 43362.

page 332 note 3 Catalogue, numbers 4805–8 and 4810.

page 333 note 1 A surviving fragment of seal on a document of the reign of James I which is certainly not a writ (B.M., Add. Ch. 37067) seems to be the same as the contemporary ‘Sessions’ seal.

page 333 note 2 Up to and including the reign of Edward VI the arms of England are used in ordinary contemporary form: with the change of legend comes in (whether deliberately or by accident) a change of the arms, which have a label added.

page 333 note 3 Durham Seals (Part ii, 1915), pp. 408–19, numbers 3044, 3048A, 3062, 3063, 3064: see also his article in Archaeologia, lxxii, 20, and that in Archaeologia, lxxvii, 168 (for the seal of Elizabeth).

page 333 note 4 Catalogue, numbers 2493, 2494: it appears, however, to correspond with Durham Seals, number 3044 (Henry VI).

page 333 note 5 It is given by Mr. Hunter Blair (Archaeologia, lxxvii, 176) among ‘Seals for Chancery Writs’ and is stated to be ad brevia in eodem Comitatu sigillanda deputatum: cf. Museum Catalogue, No. 2497.

page 334 note 1 Cp. above a note on the Parliamentary seal for Chester and Flint; as well as others on the seals of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

page 334 note 2 The British Museum as well as the Record Office has a considerable number: see the Catalogue numbers 730–48.

page 335 note 1 I have been indebted to Mr. R. Somerville for a note on these seals.

page 335 note 2 In An Account of the present state and Government of Virginia, bearing internal evidence of having been written in England in the late seventeenth century, which was published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society for 1798 (pp. 124–66), it is stated that the Governor ‘as Lord-Chancellor or Lord Keeper’ … ‘passes, under the Seal of the Colony, all grants both of land and offices and likewise decides all causes in Chancery’.

page 335 note 3 See, for instance, a recent article on the Early Massachusetts Bay Colony Seals by Mr. M. B. Jones in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. 44, part i, p. 13.

page 336 note 1 It is interesting to note also that small embossing seals at the present day carry on the tradition of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century designs connected with particular colonies.

page 336 note 2 The province; for the dominion there is a single-sided seal showing the sovereign's figure enthroned in a symbolical setting.

page 336 note 3 Examples of all these are in the British Museum: see Catalogue, numbers 14713–14766.

page 336 note 4 It is possible that any of these may be exceptional uses of one half of a double matrix. On the other hand, instances in the British Museum—e.g. Catalogue, number 14734 where we have a single-sided seal (George III, for Quebec) showing portrait of the sovereign—are merely proof impressions.

page 336 note 5 Pennsylvania offers a particularly good example of a post-Independence seal, showing on one side an armorial achievement of a plough, a ship, and sheaves of corn, and on the other a figure of Liberty with her foot on the head of a prostrate lion, and the motto Both Can't Survive. The connexion in which some examples of these later seals have survived—they are attached to claims for compensation from American Loyalists among the Records of the Audit Office—is also amusing.

page 337 note 1 Example also noted in B.M.

page 337 note 2 This is the seal of William and Mary.

1 In a number of cases a single seal matrix was used in more than one reign: the two seals of Henry V used by Richard III and Henry VIII in Ireland are particularly notable examples. In the present list such seals have been credited only to the reign to which the impression or cast here used in illustration actually belongs or has been attributed.

1 Note that Wyon's illustrations do not always correspond with the dimensions given in his text: the second Seal of Henry IV for instance, as illustrated, does not measure more than 4.75, and the Seal of Richard III is shown as much smaller than one of Edward IV which was actually from the same matrix.

2 Two smaller seals one (Wyon, numbers 45 and 46) stated to have been used circa 1263, 1264 and one of earlier date are abnormal. Wyon gives the diameter of the first of these as 3.2 in.

3 This is the Brétigny Seal, mentioned several times in the present article. It was also used by Henry V on the Treaty of Troyes.

4 The second used also by Henry VI.

5 His first, which he used while in exile, measured nearly 6.0.